


Fear & Love

by flipflop_diva



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Games, Mindfuck, Natasha Needs a Hug, Pre-Relationship, prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Mantis never knew where she came from, the pretty red-haired prisoner. All she knew was she really wanted to help her, not hurt her. Unfortunately that's not what Ego wanted.





	Fear & Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



> Based on the prompt _Mantis being used against Natasha by a third party - could be AU Ego, maybe, but I don't mind how it happens._
> 
> I had so much fun writing this. I hope you enjoy!

Mantis never knew where she came from, the pretty red-haired prisoner. One day it was just her and Ego, alone on their planet, with Ego’s vehement ideas about how his plans for getting his son back would go, and then the next he was calling her to him, a wide smile across his face.

“We have a new guest!” he told her brightly.

“We have a guest?” Mantis replied almost blankly. They had never had guests before. “Is it your son?”

“No,” Ego said. “We will have him soon enough. This is someone else. But I need your help with her.”

“Whatever I can do, Master,” she replied.

He brought her to the red-haired prisoner then. She was lying on the hard floor in a little cell underneath the main floor of the palace. She looked like she was sleeping.

Mantis stared at her. She had not seen anyone like her before — her skin was pale and her hair shone like fire. She was beautiful, and Mantis felt herself drawn to her. She wanted to reach out and touch her, to feel her skin and her hair.

“You must make her afraid,” Ego was saying, and Mantis turned her head to look at him. She knew he would be displeased if she was not giving him her full attention.

“Make her afraid?” she repeated. “Of what, Master?”

“Of me,” Ego said, and he laughed, that laugh he sometimes had that sent chills down her spine and made her a little fearful herself.

“May I ask why, Master?” she asked. 

“She is a very powerful fighter,” Ego replied. “She will help us defeat the ones who are holding my son hostage. But she is stubborn and she will not obey me. Not unless she is scared of what I can do to her if she disobeys. Fear is a very powerful motivator, Mantis.”

Mantis looked back at the sleeping red-haired prisoner.

“Master …” she started, but the words faltered before she could get them out. She did not want to hurt her. She did not want to frighten her. But Master wanted her to, so she knew she must.

She lowered her head. “Yes, Master,” she said, and she felt, rather than saw, him smile. She knew he was pleased.

•••

It took a very long time to make the red-haired prisoner afraid enough of Ego for her to do what he said. She was very strong-willed. Mantis had not known anyone human could be like that. She would touch her arm and force fear into her, but even though it always worked, it did not work well enough to make the red-haired prisoner want to fight for Ego.

“You can do anything you want to me,” Mantis would hear her tell Ego every morning. The red-haired prisoner would be standing in her cell, fists clenched by her side, chin raised. “I will never fight against my friends for you.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” Ego would always tell her, and then he would call Mantis back over.

Sometimes, Ego would force Mantis to stay with the prisoner all night long, making the fear stronger and stronger. It was on those nights that they began to talk, even though Mantis knew if they were caught that it could mean the end of them both.

“Why are you doing this?” the red-haired prisoner whispered to her one night. She hadn’t understood, at first, what Mantis’ powers were, but she had caught on.

“He is all I know,” Mantis said. “He is all I have. I do not know what would become of me without him.”

The red-haired prisoner nodded. She looked like perhaps she understood.

“I’m Natasha,” she told her.

“I am Mantis.”

“Maybe we can help each other,” Natasha said.

Mantis shook her head. “I do not think so,” she said, although she wished she could say yes. She liked when Natasha looked at her, like she saw something in her that Ego never had. “It must be this way.”

•••

Eventually the fear started to work. Mantis found, when Natasha was sleeping, she could force her into powerful nightmares that left her shaking and crying out. Natasha did not like to sleep, but Ego forced Mantis to make her so tired, she had no choice.

Mantis watched her a lot when she slept, wishing she could sooth her from the nightmares she was forced to give her. Sometimes she would stroke Natasha’s long red curls while she tossed and turned, her mind betraying her while she was forced to sleep, and whisper to her that it was just a dream.

But it did not matter. As the days passed, the fear finally began to take hold, and soon it had worked just as Ego wished. Natasha would try to hide from him when he came to see her, pressing herself back against the wall of her cell, whimpering and sometimes crying.

The worst part was Natasha grew afraid of Mantis too. She would cry when Mantis would reach for her, beg Mantis not to hurt her.

Mantis hated that. 

“No,” she would say, “I would never hurt you,” but she knew she was lying because she was hurting her, with every touch of her fingers on Natasha’s arm.

Finally, though, the day arrived that Ego had been waiting for. Natasha’s friends — the Avengers and the Guardians, Mantis heard him call them — along with his son, Peter, arrived to save her. 

“You must do one more thing,” Ego said to Mantis that morning. 

“Yes, Master?” she said, trying not to be terrified about what would be coming. She was not sure how a fight was going to go, and she did not think she could survive against any of the new arrivals if they were at all like Natasha …

“You must fill her with rage,” Ego said, gesturing toward Natasha. “So she will attack them. They will not want to hurt her, so she will have the advantage.”

“And what will you do, Master?” Mantis asked.

“I will get my son,” he said, “and let the rest of the Avengers destroy each other.”

He laughed then, that cruel awful laugh, and Mantis tried not to shiver as she stared at Natasha, whimpering in the back of her cell, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

•••

The fighting was more horrible than Mantis had imagined it would be. She had expected Ego to win, because he always won and his power was so strong, but she had not expected the ferociousness of the battle.

Mantis did as Ego asked, and touch Natasha’s arm, filling her with a horrible rage for the friends who had abandoned her to this monster, then Ego let her out of her cell and let her at them. 

Mantis had never seen anyone fight like Natasha did. She watched from a faraway corner, debris falling around her, as Natasha leapt at and attacked anyone who came near her. Mantis saw the looks on the newcomers’ faces, as they tried to fight her off without hurting her. Looks of horror and sadness and maybe a little fear.

And then one newcomer, in a suit made of iron, shot a blast of light out of his chest, hitting Natasha squarely in the front, and Mantis watched, horrified, as she fell to the ground, unmoving.

She turned then, Mantis did, and ran away from the scene of the battle, as the planet trembled beneath her feet. She found a spot, tucked in a corner, far enough way that maybe she could survive.

It seemed like hours that the attack raged on, and then, out of nowhere, a man with blond hair and a kindly smile — one of the newcomers — was crouched down in front of her, peering at her.

“My name is Steve,” he said. “We want to help you get out of here.”

Mantis looked around, waiting for Ego to appear.

“My Master …,” she started, and Steve seemed to understand.

“We’ll take care of it,” he said.

She nodded at him, and soon, the man in the iron suit who had knocked down Natasha, was hoisting her up into his arms, and then there were flying toward a ship filled with people she had never seen before.

There was screaming and yelling and shouts of “Hurry!”

The man deposited her in the middle of the ship and hurried back to the controls. She barely saw the planet she had just left explode in a mass of red and gold flames, for she had spotted something else. Someone else.

Natasha was lying just a few feet away from her, eyes closed, unmoving. The clothes she was wearing were torn and dirty. There were bruises already forming on her face. Blood dripped down her chin from a cut on her bottom lip.

But she was here. Her friends had grabbed her.

Mantis looked around. No one was paying her any mind. She inched closer to Natasha and closer still until she could reach her.

She placed a hand on Natasha’s arm. She could feel her mind filled with the rage and the fear of the past months. 

Maybe it was time for that to end.

Mantis closed her eyes, let soothing thoughts fill her own mind as she transferred them to Natasha, hoping maybe she could help just a little.

•••

The newcomers — the Avengers and the Guardians — figured out quickly what Mantis’ powers were. But what surprised Mantis the most was they were nice to her. They told her about Steve’s strength and Tony’s arc repulsor and Gamora’s skill and no one seemed to expect anything from her at all. 

It wasn’t until two days after she had been rescued, as they were on their way to earth, did someone ask her to use her powers.

It was Steve. He sat down beside her as she was eating breakfast, trying all these foods for the first time that Peter — Ego’s son, who she was glad had never been in his clutches — had told her she might like. Eggs and potatoes and bacon and toast. 

“I need your help,” he said, then added quickly. “But you can say no.”

Mantis put down her toast. “What do you need me to do?”

“Natasha is having a hard time. She doesn’t remember much of what happened, but she feels scared and angry. I thought maybe you could help soothe her, so we can help her remember who she really is.” Steve ran a hand through his hair. “But only if you feel comfortable doing so.”

Mantis stared at him thoughtfully. She did not need to touch him to recognize the concerned expression on his face.

“You care about her,” she said.

“She is my friend,” Steve said. “She’s all of our friend.”

“I will help,” Mantis said. “I would like her to be my friend, too.”

Steve smiled at her and led her to the back of the ship, to an area that had been set up like a hospital. Natasha was lying on one of the beds. Her eyes were open, but she did not seem to be aware of any of them. She was whimpering softly, the way she had back in her cell after Mantis had given her nightmares.

Mantis felt a feeling churn inside her, an acknowledgement that maybe this was all her fault, but she moved forward, sat on the stool beside the bed that Steve directed her to.

She lifted one of Natasha’s hands, felt her cool skin beneath her own fingers.

“It is all okay now,” she told Natasha. “You are safe. There is no more to fear.” She squeezed Natasha’s hand, closed her own eyes, let feelings of safety and warmth and comfort push from her into Natasha.

Instantly, she felt Natasha relax a little. Mantis opened her eyes. Natasha’s head turned toward Mantis. She blinked.

She still seemed like she didn’t really understand what was happening, but there was a flickering there.

“I told you,” Natasha whispered, and her voice was small, like she had not used it much at all in a long time, “that we could help each other.”

“I will help you,” Mantis told her. “Until you are well.”

She squeezed Natasha’s hand again and watched her as her green eyes slid close and she drifted off into the first peaceful sleep she had been allowed to have in a while.

That night, in her own bed, far away from the others, Mantis dreamed, for the first time, of her and Natasha, coming together, their lips and hands and bodies entwined. 

Mantis awoke with a start. There was silence on the ship. But she felt herself getting to her feet and wrapping herself in a robe she had been given.

She headed across the ship to see Natasha.


End file.
